


Filling the Role

by ephemera (incognitajones)



Series: Improvisation [2]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bad Decisions, F/M, Imperial Jyn Erso, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Sex as a distraction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-01
Updated: 2020-04-30
Packaged: 2021-02-17 22:14:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 14,743
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21800551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/incognitajones/pseuds/ephemera
Summary: Half an hour ago, Jyn had been convinced she’d end the night either dead or in an Imperial prison.Jyn Erso, raised in luxurious captivity as a hostage for her father's good behaviour, decided to risk trusting the Rebel agent who told her he could help. Now she's realizing that she escaped one dangerous situation by leaping into another that could be even more so, and about which she knows much less.
Relationships: Cassian Andor/Jyn Erso
Series: Improvisation [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1570957
Comments: 77
Kudos: 266





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Some of you may have read this story earlier; I shared the Gdocs link on request when I wasn't sure I'd publish it. I'm posting it now because I'm writing a longer sequel that wouldn't make much sense without this as a prologue.

Jyn Erso never listened to her impulses; it was too dangerous to act without knowing each and every variable, as far as possible. So she didn’t understand what the karking hell had happened tonight. 

Half an hour ago, Jyn had been convinced she’d end the night either dead or in an Imperial prison—no question death would have been the kinder fate. Then a stranger had looked at her like he knew her down to the nuclei of her cells. He’d stepped between her and Krennic, and told her he was from the Rebellion and he could help. She’d stared into his weary brown eyes, and for some reason she still didn’t understand, what she’d seen in their depths had made her believe it. She’d chosen to go with him.

Now she was following the man she’d met as Lieutenant Willix through the hatch of an Imperial shuttle into its small cargo hold. She shivered as the cold recycled air of the ship blew goosebumps over her skin and crossed her arms over her breasts in a vain attempt to hold in some warmth. Her silk dress wasn’t designed for any temperature but the overheated crowd of a party.

A barrage of clanking steps echoed from the cockpit and she suppressed a startled jerk backward. “Cassian?” A hulking K-2 series droid ducked its cranium through the companionway and focused its bright ocular sensors on her. “What are you doing back already? And why have you brought this… person?”

 _Cassian_. Jyn filed the name away in her head. It was the first thing she’d learned about her—rescuer, she’d call him, until or unless he proved otherwise.

“Kay, this is Jyn Erso,” the man said. He was already stripping the uniform cap from his head, the gloves from his hands, and dropping them to the deck as though he couldn’t stand to have them touch his skin any longer. “She’s the one we were looking for, and we need to be off this planet five minutes ago.”

“When I’ve perfected time travel, I’ll be sure to let you know,” the droid said—was that _sarcasm_ in its tone?—and disappeared back into the cockpit. 

“I need to help Kay with getting clearance to launch,” the Alliance agent told her, and gestured to another hatch opening off the cramped space. “Please wait in the cabin. This is a small ship, there’s no room in the cockpit for a passenger. Once we’re in hyperspace we can talk.”

She nodded, but he was already turning for the cockpit, yelling “Set a course for the closest safe way-point!” The engines whined, rumbling to life and shaking the deck beneath her feet as the hold lights dimmed to running brightness. She stumbled through the door he’d indicated and sat down hard on a narrow bench or bunk built against the curving side of the ship.

A sudden lift beneath her and a second of seeming weightlessness told her the ship had lifted from the dock. Acceleration shoved down on her shoulders, driving her deeper into the padded bench for a moment, and then released. Wherever they were going, it was too late to turn back now. Jyn’s vision narrowed, turning gray and grainy around the periphery, and her hands started to shake. She clenched her fists until her nails cut into her palms and forced herself to breathe slowly to stave off the panic threatening to drown her. 

She bent down and concentrated on undoing the straps of her high-heeled shoes so she could yank them off, flexing her cramped toes with painful pleasure. There was no furniture in the cabin except the padded bench she was sitting on, no viewports, just another hatch opening on the narrow end wall—presumably a fresher. She got up, the cold metal of the deck biting into the soles of her feet, and checked: yes, basic hygiene fixtures. 

The only other thing in the room was a dusty duffel bag resting at the head of the bench against the bulkhead. She unzipped it and went through the contents methodically, nudging them aside to make sure she got all the way to the bottom. Toiletries. A few clean uniform shirts, another pair of gloves, and a spare pair of gaberwool jodhpurs. A datapad that was retina-locked. And a blaster: plain and worn, but it looked like it was fully charged.

Just as her hand curled around the grip, the cabin door whisked open behind her. “Find anything interesting?” the agent—Fulcrum, Cassian, whoever he was—asked.

 _Kriff._ Jyn straightened slowly, hoping to distract him from realizing how far through his things she’d searched. “Just looking for something else to wear.” She reached up and dragged the straps of her gown off her shoulders, letting the narrow column of fabric slither to the ground and stepping out of it. The chill in the air raced over her whole body, tightening her nipples and raising goosebumps on her thighs, but she stood casually, making no effort to conceal her nakedness.

He didn’t avert his gaze, but neither did he give her any reaction other than one rapid blink. “Spare clothes are here.” He knelt to open a recessed compartment at the foot of the berth, pulling out a shirt and pants of coarse beige cotton. He held them out to her and waited for her to take them from his hands before looking back up. 

“I was almost positive you had a thigh holster under there,” he murmured, and his eyes widened for a moment as though he hadn’t meant to say that. From this angle she could see a faint red flush stain the tops of his ears. 

She shrugged, holding his gaze as she clutched the bundle of clothes to her stomach. “Can’t wear it with this dress, unfortunately. It shows through the line of the skirt.”

“Understandable.” He got to his feet, suddenly much closer to her, and Jyn’s heart rate spiked for an instant before he stepped back, giving her as much space as he could in the tiny cabin. “Now, if you’ll just take the knife out of your hair, we can have a civilized conversation.”

Jyn froze. A wave of panic crashed over her again at the thought of giving up her only weapon. But what protection would it actually provide? She was alone on a ship in hyperspace with some kind of spy and a security droid who could crush her skull with one hand. Realistically speaking, if they wished her any harm, she was already dead. 

He turned his hands up in a mild, pacifying gesture. “You don’t have to give it to me. I’d just prefer it somewhere I can see it.”

She swallowed dryly and gave a tight nod before escaping into the fresher. 

The door didn’t lock, but at least it closed. She dragged the rough pants on, wincing at the friction against her thighs and wishing for a pair of underwear, and fastened the oversized shirt hastily. With shaking fingers, she unpinned the heavy coil of her braids. The tight band of headache around her skull eased a fraction as their weight fell to her shoulders. Her sharpened hair pick went in the shirt pocket, where she could feel its point pricking her breast reassuringly.

She caught sight of her reflection and recoiled. Her eye makeup had smeared into a bruise-coloured mess. She ran a fingertip under her lower lashes in an effort to wipe away the worst of it, but the harsh overhead light still accentuated every line of tension and fear etched into her face, making her look years older, like the holo of her mother that sat on her father’s desk. 

Jyn stared at the stranger in the mirror. Who was she? Lyra’s daughter, who’d listened to her tales of the Jedi and of heroic resistance? Galen’s, who’d bowed to necessity—or Krennic’s? Had the years she spent under his thumb contaminated her, slowly deforming her into what she hated?

She shivered. Thinking like that wouldn’t help her now. Flipping the spigot on cold, she splashed water on her face and the back of her neck and rinsed her mouth. 

When she opened the door, the agent was sitting at one end of the bunk tapping away at his datapad. He’d left the other end free for her, the one in the corner of the cabin, and she folded herself into it with her back pressed against the wall. The shirt and pants were warmer than her dress (which wasn’t lying where she’d dropped it—he must have put it away somewhere), but it was still chilly enough that she curled her knees up, huddling into them. 

She didn’t say anything, occupying herself with teasing her tight braids apart and trying to comb them out with her fingers. He didn’t speak either, or look up from the pad, and she was able to steal a better look at him. 

He was attractive, but then she’d noticed that at the party. A little lean for an actual Imperial officer, but tall, and handsome in a high-cheekboned, sharp-jawed kind of way. He’d taken off his boots and grey tunic and was wearing just uniform jodhpurs and a white shirt, somewhat creased and sweaty, sleeves rolled up and the high collar undone. His hair had fallen out of its earlier gelled slickness into his eyes. 

He was good—very good: letting her have the defensive position, taking pains to look disheveled and approachable rather than the perfectly groomed Imperial lackey he’d appeared at the party. Very ingratiating. In a social setting, it would have been almost a come-on; here, it was intended to get her to open up, to trust him.

But Jyn knew how to manipulate people too, and how to reflect back whatever they expected of her. She’d been acting almost all of her life, ever since she was old enough to understand that when she showed what she really felt or thought she was punished—or her father was. Once she understood that there was no-one capable of protecting her but herself. 

She wondered again why this man had put himself between her and Krennic. The fact that he’d done it, that he’d broken her out of the trap that was slowly strangling her, didn’t make him trustworthy; he’d done it for the Alliance, not for her. But it made her want to trust him. She didn’t feel threatened by his presence only a few centimetres away. She felt safe, even though it was an illusion. 

She went on slowly unravelling her braids and working her fingers through her hair. It was a mindless, soothing task, and it occupied her while she waited for him to talk. Of course, he was waiting for her to speak first too, but Jyn had learned patience and silence in a hard school. She could be quiet as long as necessary.

Eventually he set his datapad aside and looked at her, his mouth tipped up at one corner in subtle amusement, as though he appreciated her stubbornness. “What do you want to know?” he asked. Even his voice was engaging, low and pleasant with a mid-Rim accent she couldn’t place.

He’d still turned the conversation back around on her, but that was fine. She kept her eyes down, concentrating on a knot in one braid, and said, “What happened to Rook? The pilot, Bodhi.” 

A surprised crease flickered across his forehead; either he hadn’t been expecting her to ask that, or he didn’t know the answer. “The contact you sent him to wasn’t very receptive,” he said after a moment. “He didn’t believe Rook at first, and used extremely harsh interrogation techniques.” 

“You mean they tortured him.” Jyn squeezed her eyes shut, cursing herself for being the cause. 

Another hesitation, and then, “Yes. I’m sorry.”

“Did you do it?” she demanded, opening her eyes to stare at him. 

“No,” he said, quickly and flatly enough that it was probably the truth.

“Then don’t apologize,” she told him. “It was my fault. Where’s Bodhi now?”

“At the base I’m taking you to, under medical care,” he said. “You’ll be able to see him as soon as you’re debriefed.”

“And how long will _that_ take?” she asked, shifting in her seat and letting her skepticism show. 

He looked down, and she realized her feet had slipped far enough down the bench that her toes were grazing his thigh. She didn’t pull away. Let him think she was trying to unsettle him by getting into his personal space, instead of just so fucking tired she could barely sit up.

“That will depend on a lot of things,” he said at last, so softly it was hard to make out the words. “Right now, I can’t say.” 

Jyn nodded with a tiny jerk of her head. Fair enough. He could have told her not to worry, that it would be easy and quick; at least he hadn’t tried to feed her an obvious lie.

He reached for his datapad again, his fingers brushing the top of her foot as he did. Once again, she refused to move away, though even that fleeting touch rippled along her nerves all the way up her leg. He was attractive, she wasn’t a Jedi monk; it was okay to react to his physical presence. 

“Are you hungry?” he asked. “There isn’t a full galley on board, but I can heat up a ration packet or two.”

Jyn shrugged. She probably ought to feel ravenous—she couldn’t remember the last time she’d eaten—but right now any hunger was buried far below the exhaustion and panic that she was barely keeping contained. “How long until we reach your base?” she asked.

He checked the chrono on his pad. “About eight hours.” 

“I can wait.” She didn’t see how she could eat or sleep until she knew what was going on with Bodhi. Or her father. 

“You should eat, and rest,” he said gently. “You need it, and neglecting yourself won’t help your friend or your father.” 

“I know,” Jyn snapped. “I’m just not hungry.” When was the last time someone had been this kind to her, even with an ulterior motive? She didn’t know. Shavit, how sad that a stranger offering her reheated processed food was one of the nicest gestures she could remember. 

“All right. Is there anything else you want?” He still sounded sincere. 

Jyn choked back a laugh and exhausted tears stung her eyes. How about a different life? Her father freed, her mother alive… Bodhi safe at home… She blinked and looked back up at the agent—Cassian. He was watching her with what looked like real concern, or at least an excellent imitation of it. He’d let her kiss him at the party, if only for camouflage; he’d wrapped those surprisingly strong arms around her waist and held her close. She needed that illusion again for just a few minutes. She wanted to ignore that she’d escaped a sinking ship by jumping into deeper waters where she didn’t know the currents. 

She took the lethally sharp hair stick out of her pocket, slowly and carefully, before setting it down on the deck and rolling it a few feet away. He watched her do it, his head tilting in silent curiosity, but didn’t move. She rose to her knees and leaned forward slowly, very slowly, until her lips were separated from his only by a breath. “What if I want this?” she whispered.

She could feel the quickening of his own breath as he stared at her mouth. “That’s—not a good idea,” he said, but the catch in his voice betrayed that he was thinking about it.

“So? You never have any bad ones?” she challenged him.

“Occasionally.” That small hint of amusement flickered over his mouth again. To wipe it away before he could say anything else, she closed the microscopic gap between them and pressed her lips to his. 

Jyn channelled all her desperation into the kiss, her hands sliding around the back of his neck and cupping his head to hold him close. Her fingers weaved through his soft hair and she let her nails scrape against his scalp. He made a muffled noise into her mouth at that, and when she did it again the datapad clattered to the deck. Jyn leaned forward, pressing closer, intent on chasing the taste of him, the way it made her forget where and what she was— 

“Wait.” He tore his mouth away from hers and his fingers dug into the curve of her hips, holding her still. “Wait. If you really want this, there have to be a few rules.”

Good. Jyn liked rules. They kept things simple; if they were broken, you knew who to blame. “Fine,” she said. “What kind of rules?”

He licked his lips, and she wondered whether he was actually nervous or if he was just trying to make her feel in control of the situation. “Just once. It won’t happen again. And I need to know you’re serious. Tell me you mean it.” 

She dragged her hands through his ruffled hair, framed his jaw between her thumbs and stared into his eyes. “I mean it.”

She felt the tension in his body slacken, though his hands tightened on her hips. When she slid her hands down to his shoulders and pushed, he went back readily, allowing her to straddle his thighs. His mouth was hungry, responsive—not like earlier tonight when she’d ambushed him with a kiss and he’d reacted with caution. She used the leverage of her lips on his to press his head back against the bulkhead, yanking his shirt out of his pants. She slipped her fingers under it, stroking up the side of his ribs and feeling him shudder beneath her as she clamped her knees around his hips to stay upright. 

He echoed her movement, sliding his hands under her loose shirt and spreading warm fingers over her bare skin as he drew slow arcs with his thumbs, barely brushing the sides of her breasts. Jyn shivered and squirmed, desperate to feel that light touch on her nipples, and the movement settled her more heavily on his hardening cock. She pulled her hands out of his shirt and went for his belt buckle, fighting to get it open without having to stop kissing him. With a jangle it came undone at last and she popped open the first two buttons of his fly before shoving her hand inside impatiently. His hips jerked as she rubbed the heel of her palm against him. 

They were still kissing, breathless and sloppy now, but he pulled away and shoved her shirt up with one hand so that he could get his mouth on her skin. His tongue traced lazy, hot circles as she arched into him, craving more, and his other arm banded around the small of her back to hold her up. Her wrist was angled awkwardly but she was still able to curl her hand around him and squeeze. He groaned around her nipple. She wiggled backward, straining to get her hand farther inside his pants, and Cassian had to grab her hips before she fell off his lap.

He lifted his lips from her skin barely enough to breathe a question against her collarbone. “Do you want my fingers or my mouth?” 

Holy fucking Force. Jyn almost passed out at the thought of the mouth that was currently searing the column of her neck between her legs…

“Fingers,” she managed to gasp out. That would be better—less intimate.

“Come here.” He hauled her toward him and they fell sideways on the bunk with their mouths fused together in another breathless, suffocating kiss. Jyn clung to his shoulders as his hand slipped around the curve of her ass, underneath her pants, tugging them down to her thighs as he tried to get his hand on her cunt. She pushed closer, looping her arm around his neck to anchor herself. She wasn’t cold any more, she was burning up with the heat of him and with her own desire bubbling underneath her skin, firing her nerves. 

Cassian’s fingertip traced lightly over her with just enough pressure to make her whimper and strain for more. His thumb rubbed across her clit and sparks shot through her, then he pushed it inside her, thick and slow, and she moaned. He made a low, rough noise of hunger and his cock pressed hard against her thigh. She wormed one hand between their bodies, interlocking their arms as she fought to wrap her fingers around him again. The bunk was barely wide enough for both of them, even crushed tight together—it was awkward and frustrating and insanely hot working each other with hardly any room to move. She could feel the side of his hand against hers as she squeezed his cock, and when he turned his wrist trying to drive his fingers deeper inside her it shifted her own grip on him. They groaned simultaneously into the kiss and she bit down on his lower lip. 

“Please,” she begged, not knowing what she was asking for other than more of this, more of him. 

“Tell me,” Cassian muttered against her lips, but she couldn’t form any words other than a string of half-formed, frantic pleas. She rolled against his hand with a sharp cry that dropped into a low moan as he kept kissing her, rocking his hips into hers in a rhythm that echoed what she wanted. She shook and shuddered and came apart in his arms, biting the point of his shoulder to stifle a scream. He held her tight, letting her ride the receding waves out in his arms as tingling aftershocks rippled through her.

When she caught her breath she tightened her fist around his cock, sliding her thumb over the bead of wetness at its tip, hearing the slick sounds as she stroked harder, faster, kissing him through gasps until he broke and spilled over her fist in a hot pulse that escaped at the same time as a quiet, strangled noise from his throat.

Jyn didn’t kiss him again, but their foreheads stayed pressed together as their heaving breath gradually slowed, their bodies still so close she could feel his heartbeat thundering through her chest. She was on the outside of the bench; she should probably move, but she wasn’t sure she could right now. He didn’t seem in a hurry to get up, either. Finally, he sighed into her hair. Something brushed the top of her head, something that felt like a kiss—but that must have been her imagination. He wiped them both off with the tail of his shirt before he sat up and slid off the bench. The cold air of the ship replaced his warmth along her side and she shivered.

She heard the trickle of water as he cleaned off, the rustle of fabric as he changed his shirt and fastened his pants. She waited for him to leave and lock her in, but instead she heard another soft rustle, and then a stiff, scratchy blanket was draped over her. 

But he still didn’t go; Jyn could feel him standing there, watching her. She rolled her head toward him and opened her eyes. “What?”

“Think you can sleep now?” he asked.

At the thought of it she yawned, a jaw-cracking, eye-watering gape. “Yeah.” She yawned again. “Wha’ about you? Wher’ll you sleep?”

A microsecond of surprise flashed across his features. “I can nap in the cockpit. I’ll wake you half an hour before we’re due to land.” 

He was still studying her with that impossibly familiar expression, the one that made her yearn to trust him. She closed her eyes again in case he could read her weakness in them. His fingers traced over her temple and pushed her tangled hair out of her face, tucking it behind one ear. “It will be okay.”

Jyn let out a soft, skeptical snort, but she couldn’t help turning her cheek into the magnetic warmth of his palm for a second. “You don’t know that,” she mumbled. “But thanks.”


	2. Chapter 2

Jyn’s introduction to the Rebellion was an indistinguishable blur. Half-asleep, she stumbled off the agent’s ship onto a nameless, sweltering jungle moon and went straight into what seemed like a never-ending debriefing. She answered the same questions over and over (some of which they had to know the answers to already) until her sense of time was wobbly and strained. She might have been there for twelve hours or two days. 

They weren’t cruel, but they weren’t gentle either. Jyn couldn’t hold it against them; she was an unknown quantity and they needed to figure out whether she was bait, or a trap. At least they finally let her eat and sleep—in a private room, behind a locked door, which was unimaginable luxury to Jyn. It wasn’t for her benefit, of course, but because they didn’t want her to know where she was, or to talk to anyone unsupervised. Still, the barren room stripped of everything but a cot and a camera in the ceiling felt like paradise. She curled into a ball on the thin mattress and passed out.

A crisp rapping on the door woke her from sleep as dense as a black hole. It was the Fulcrum agent again—Cassian, that was his name, or at least what the droid called him, and the upper ranks had called him Captain Andor. He gave her a new set of clothes that fit her better and took her to a larger room for yet another interview session, with most of the same people plus a lot of new faces. The questions came faster now, and were repeated often to cross-check her answers, confirm them against what they knew, catch her out in any lies… But Jyn wasn’t stupid; she hadn’t lied to them. She’d left some things out of her story, things that didn’t matter (like how cornered and desperate she’d felt), but she’d never lied.

By now she was beginning to feel frustrated, though she had enough sense left to hide it. Surely they must have some idea of what they were going to do? And she had to fight back a stupid, unjustified tendency to flush whenever Captain Andor asked her a question. 

Jyn had quit being embarrassed about sex a long time ago. It was only bodies, just a moment of friction that generated brief warmth and pleasure. No doubt Andor felt the same; a spy would hardly be a prude. And it had been clear enough that he was just trying to calm her down. But every time he looked at her, something like shame washed over her, as though she’d exposed too much of herself. 

She wondered if he thought less of her, though she didn’t have any reason to believe so. He didn’t act overly familiar or drop any hints of what had passed between them on his ship (though she’d bet his superiors knew about it); he remained cool, detached, focused solely on what she could tell them about Project Stardust. He didn’t seem to have any trouble acting like he’d never touched her.

At the next break in the questioning, she was taken to the medbay for an exam. That was the worst of it. Oh, the Alliance medics were professional, and considerate enough. They didn’t put her under; they asked permission before touching her, and told her what they were doing as they scanned for any potential tracking implants… but it was all too reminiscent of the way Krennic had had her constantly monitored and watched, or drugged if she showed a tiny sliver of resistance. She set her jaw and endured. 

It helped that Captain Andor stayed, even though he was nowhere near her; he just leaned against the wall, deliberately inattentive. At one point, the head medic told him to leave the room and Jyn found herself saying, louder than she meant to, “No.” 

He stopped in the doorway with his back to her and she repeated it. “No. I want him to stay.” She met his eyes when he turned around, daring him to comment, but he only took up a position to one side of the door and stood there, silently. The medic sighed with exasperation but didn’t try to make him leave again. 

He made her feel safe. Of all the bizarre things that had happened in the past few days, that might be the strangest.

Jyn understood why she longed to trust him. She couldn't help associating him with safety; he'd given her a way out of Krennic's reach when she thought she might never escape it, and for that alone she felt grateful. She also knew it was an illusion, and that she couldn't take him at face value any more than the poisonous vipers she'd grown up among. She had to remember that to Captain Andor and his superiors, she was nothing more than an asset—a potentially useful tool. If she was neither co-operative nor useful, they'd quickly discard her. She hoped that at least the Rebellion didn't eliminate its mistakes as ruthlessly as the Empire. 

“You’ve been medically sterilized. Was that voluntary? And how old were you when the procedure was performed?” the medic asked.

“Yes.” Jyn cleared her throat. “Fifteen.”

It had taken her more than a year to hoard and steal enough credits, but she’d managed to find a clinic that would give her a permanent fix under the table and off the books. She’d known there was no way she could risk having a child to chain her to that life, the way she was being used to chain her father. The punishment after it was discovered at her next official checkup had been worth it.

Medical exam over, the interrogation resumed, at excruciating length. Jyn tried to distract herself from her rising anxiety by defining precisely how the Alliance’s Captain Andor was distinguishable from Imperial Lieutenant Willix. His hair was scruffier, not as well-groomed; he already had the shadow of a beard no ambitious Imperial officer would wear, and he stood straight, but without the stiffly upright posture that made them walk like a flock of long-legged birds. 

Though Andor might be less formal than Willix, he was no more relaxed. When he wasn’t the one questioning her, Jyn had grown accustomed to seeing him out of the corner of her eye as he observed from an overlooked angle of the room, where the holoscreens threw the deepest overlapping shadows. He’d lean against the wall in an outwardly casual pose, but his arms were crossed over his chest and his dark eyes were always watchful.

She stared at his hard expression in the dim blue light of the briefing room and almost lost track of what the choleric red-haired General was asking. Jyn didn’t know what he wanted from her—what any of them wanted, other than information. Was she supposed to be a prize, or prey? It made her nervous and disoriented; how could she play a role when she didn’t know the script?

Finally, after hours of talking, hundreds of questions that left Jyn’s throat dry and her head aching, they more or less gave her her freedom. Apparently she’d passed their tests—so far. 

But they still didn’t exactly roll out the welcome mat. When she asked what the Alliance was going to do about Project Stardust, she was told it would take some time to analyze the intelligence she'd given them and make a decision. She’d be kept informed. Jyn wanted to protest, but didn’t dare, not knowing how far she could push things. And when she asked for something to do while she waited for their decision (appearing compliant was always a good strategy), they assigned her to the droid tech pool, which was mildly insulting. 

As soon as she caught sight of the huge, spindle-limbed security droid, Jyn understood why. It wasn’t just that she couldn’t do much damage in the repair bay, though that was undoubtedly part of it; they wanted her somewhere the droid could watch her. It was the same one she’d seen on Andor’s ship, an Imperial K-2 unit that he’d reprogrammed from a capricious killing machine into something even more unpredictable, according to the whispers she overheard around base.

K-2SO—Kaytoo for short—was unexpectedly good company, though. When Jyn complained about not being issued a knife, he’d asked her what she could possibly need it for. She'd said flippantly that she just wanted to cut her hair. The next day he’d presented her with a trimmer attachment “borrowed” from a medroid, and she’d told him to chop it off level with her jaw. She’d had to take deep breaths as the buzz of the trimmer vibrated in her skull, long airy wisps of hair floating to the ground around her. Part of her still missed the braids her mother had been the first to show her how to do.

But she wasn’t that girl anymore, and she didn’t have to wear her hair long now, because no-one here kriffing cared how she looked. It was a minor but satisfying freedom not to have to pin it back. The lightness and the feel of the ends swinging around her ears were still novel; she often found herself touching the bare nape of her neck.

Shorter hair didn't help much with the heat, though. Jyn was used to climate-controlled Coruscant and cold, rainy Eadu; it was just as damp on Yavin 4, but hot and muggy. Humidity sweated from the golden stone of the half-ruined temples the Alliance were squatting in, even deep inside the cramped passages bored through the structures. The air was as thick and heavy as a wet wool blanket. Every day it rained in the late afternoon, thunderclouds rolling in to veil the tops of the pyramids and turn the beaten earth around their feet to mud. 

Jyn thought she might grow moss if she couldn’t do something—anything—soon. Every hour she didn’t know what was happening to her father was another agonizing needle driven into her skin. She could have stolen a ship and made a run for it; but right now the Alliance were still her best (her only) chance of rescuing her father. So she stayed. 

The Captain himself was gone. He’d vanished after the final debriefing and she hadn’t seen him since. But he must have made it clear that he was keeping an eye on her, whether for her protection or the Alliance’s. Either way, it seemed most people didn’t want to cross him without good reason, because she hadn’t encountered much overt hostility around base. She’d expected more, frankly, but after all, they still needed her for something. If she failed to deliver, if her intelligence proved useless… then she’d see their true colours.

A few nasty comments had been shot at her, but she hadn’t had to defend herself physically once, not even from the half-dozen recruits she shared a cramped, stiflingly hot barracks with. One of them had defected from the Imperial Academy, and the rest were from worlds where Imperial occupation went back decades. None of them came from a planet that had been recently “pacified.” Another thing that made sense once she thought about it; eventually they'd have to integrate, but the Rebellion wouldn’t want its brand new recruits fighting each other first. 

The name Erso meant nothing to them, which was a relief. Jyn had spent her life hiding in plain sight. She reflected back whatever people expected of her, concealed behind predictability. She talked less than she listened, gave less than she took, watched without being noticed. That made it easy for her to fit in with the Rebellion, at least superficially. She’d given them what they wanted—all the information she had about Krennic’s project, everything she knew or guessed—and now she tried to behave the way they’d expect her to: meek and grateful. Of course the Alliance would use her as a hostage for her father’s good behaviour, just as Krennic had. She hoped they’d also let her be useful, once she proved she wasn’t some kind of triple agent. So she kept her head down, did her routine and undemanding work, and tried to be invisible.

Andor was gone, but (somewhat surprisingly) he’d kept his word. Jyn had been allowed to visit Bodhi in the medbay, where he was still recovering from the torture he’d been put through because she and her father had persuaded him to carry a message. The guilt of that weighed on her, even though Bodhi kept telling her he’d rather be with the Alliance than back on Eadu… where her father still was, under who knew what kind of conditions. Krennic might have decided that Galen could no longer be trusted, with his daughter no longer at hand to rein him in, and thrown him in a cell. Or maybe her father had no idea at all that she’d escaped. She didn't know, and that kept her restless and on edge.

She wasn’t completely isolated. Apart from Bodhi and Kaytoo, a few Rebels were willing to talk to her, mostly fellow ex-Imperials like her bunk-mates, or people who didn’t give a toss about anyone’s past—like Melshi and Tonc. They were Outer Rim roughnecks, scruffy and loud, the kind of people Krennic would have been disgusted to see her with. That alone made her like them, even though Andor had probably tasked them with babysitting her. At least they made her laugh.

On what Jyn thought was her ninth morning with the Alliance, she ate her lukewarm breakfast—she couldn’t tell whether it was fried protein gel or scrambled eggs, but Tonc’s nickname for it was unbelievably filthy—and let their talk of people and planets she didn’t know wash over her. Some unit called the Pathfinders was due back from Lothal within a few days, and word was that Captain Andor had just returned from a recon mission.

Jyn’s fork scraped harshly across her plate as a whirlpool of anxiety began to twist in her gut. If Andor had been off base for recon, it most likely had to do with trying to confirm some of the information she’d brought. Whatever he’d found might make the difference in whether the Alliance High Command decided to rescue her father or abandon him. 

She swallowed the last tasteless lump of food, feeling it land heavy in her stomach. She had to know what he was going to tell them. 

Jyn didn’t bother making up an excuse to skip work. No-one would notice she was missing except the captain’s droid friend, who was sure to be wherever Andor was right now. She found the deserted corridor leading to Andor’s personal quarters, sat down across from his door, and waited. 

She stayed there for hours as the heat of the day built to its peak. This far from the vast open doorways of the pyramid, not a breath stirred the feverish air, and a film of sweat gradually sheened her skin from head to toe. She wiped her damp forehead with her sleeve, rested the back of her head against the wall, and kept waiting. 

When Andor rounded the corner, his steps hesitated for a short stuttering moment, but he didn’t seem especially surprised to see her. 

“How did you know where to find me?” he asked, turning to his door.

His quarters weren’t listed in the base directory, but they hadn’t been that hard to find. “Kaytoo comes here, and he’s not exactly stealthy.”

“Of course,” he sighed. 

Jyn struggled to her feet, legs tingling as dormant muscles woke. He blocked her view of the keypad with his body, but out of habit she counted the number of taps anyway: the passcode was ten digits. The door creaked open, and she slid up close behind Andor, following him in before he could block the entrance… or, more likely, he’d chosen to let her in. She wasn’t sure what to think of that.

The room was small and windowless, lit by a few flickering panels screwed to the high ceiling and unbearably hot, despite the tiny air exchange buzzing in the corner valiantly fighting to lower the temperature by a few degrees. Andor walked over to set his datapad and his blaster down on a makeshift desk that was nothing more than a small metal ledge bolted to the wall and shrugged off his jacket, draping it over a rickety metal chair. 

Belongings squared away, he turned around to face her and folded his arms over his chest. He didn’t seem angry, but she still couldn’t read him well. He simply looked back at her, his face seemingly open and honest but offering nothing she could get a handle on, no emotion she could exploit. “What do you want?”

After so long waiting in the heat, Jyn didn’t have the patience to be subtle. She made her demand bluntly. “I want to know what you told them. What they’ve decided to do about my father.”

“What makes you think I know what they’ll do?” he said.

She rolled her eyes to show him what she thought of that. “I’m not stupid.” Though maybe it would have gotten her farther with the Alliance if she’d pretended to be.

“What I was able to learn fits with your account,” Andor said, gently—too gently. He was about to tell her something he knew she wouldn't like. “The problem is that I wasn’t able to learn much. And Rook’s memory for details… it's not reliable now. He can’t fully corroborate your story either.” 

Jyn bit the inside of her lip until it stung and she could fight back the urge to scream. “Meaning the Alliance isn't going to do anything to help my father.” 

“I didn’t say that. But right now we don’t have a lot of information to go on.” 

“If you took me, you’d have a guide.” _And a bargaining chip_ , she didn’t say. She knew he’d understand her subtext. 

_Or a potential double-crosser_ , he didn’t say, though they both knew that was the other possibility. “You’re not a soldier.”

She shrugged. “No, but I can shoot. I know the facility and its security protocols. If there’s an extraction team, I want to be on it.”

“You said so. Many times.” He sighed with the slow, controlled cadence of utter exhaustion. He stood as straight as always, but from the tightness around his eyes Jyn suspected he was running on fumes. How long since he’d slept? “With both you and Rook missing, the whole installation will be on high alert. The false trails we’ve laid won’t fool anyone for long.”

“All the more reason to do it now!” she snarled, planting her feet and leaning closer. The air between them felt prickly, charged with lightning like the afternoon thunderstorm rolling in. She wanted to shove him, make him _listen_ to her—or maybe she just wanted to touch him. 

Jyn hadn’t allowed herself to think about what they’d done on his ship. It was in the past, so it wasn’t helpful. But here, in this dim and hot space, it was impossible not to remember it.

She realized that she was staring at his mouth, and blinked. They were standing too close together, even for people in the midst of an argument, so close that she could feel the heat of his body. But he hadn’t moved away. He was right there, and he was more than capable of stopping her if he didn’t want this...

Jyn seized his shoulders and felt him twitch with surprise, but he still didn’t pull away. She hauled herself up, lifting on her toes until she could reach his mouth with hers, pushing her lips against his in a sweaty, clumsy kiss, pressing close, closer, until her body was flush tight with his and he let her crowd him backward until his back met the wall.

When he bumped into the stone, her teeth inadvertently closed on his bottom lip, and the slight sting seemed to wake his hunger. His hands clamped around her waist and he yanked her hard against him. The kiss became deeper, messier, as he opened his mouth to taste her instead of passively letting her kiss him. Jyn threaded her fingers into the longer hair at his nape to guide his head to a better angle. Remembering how he’d reacted the first time she did this, she closed her fist and pulled, not too hard, just a little tug. His hips jerked forward in response and she moaned into his mouth. “Cassian,” she gasped, about to tell him to get his pants off right now. 

Shavit, using his name was a mistake. She could feel him remember who she was and where they were; she could practically hear his second thoughts about what they were doing. His hands dropped away from her waist, his muscles tensed beneath her hands and he ducked his head, breaking the contact between their lips. 

“That was unnecessary,” he said, taking her by the elbows and gently pushing her away. “As it turns out, the Council agrees with you.”

Jyn’s head was spinning, and her body was already complaining, deprived and hungry for more. She opened her mouth, ready to persuade him into another kiss—then her brain caught up with her ears, and she heard what he’d actually said. But she still didn’t understand. “What?” she said, stupidly. 

“We’re planning an extraction. And Command has decided we should take an asset who knows the terrain, which means you or Rook.”

“You know it makes more sense to take me,” Jyn argued. “Bodhi’s not strong enough yet, and the landing codes will have been changed after he left anyway. But I know the overrides. I know the whole base, not just the cargo area—” 

He was still holding her at arms length; now his grip tightened and his fingers dug into her triceps. That seemed to make him notice that he was still touching her and he quickly dropped his hands, releasing her. “You're also far more recognizable than he is. And a much higher value hostage if you’re captured.”

“I have no intention of being caught.” She’d throw herself off one of Eadu’s convenient cliffs first. 

“For what it's worth, Draven and I agree that you're the better choice. So yes, you’re on the team.”

Jyn blinked. She wouldn't have picked the grumpy general as a champion of her cause. Draven didn’t seem to believe her, precisely, but if he was willing to use her as a means to get his hands on Galen Erso, she'd do her best to ensure it happened. “Well, that’s good. I’m glad one of you has some common sense.”

Andor slipped past her and crossed the small space back to his desk. “See? You got what you came for. Now you can go.”

Somehow his assumption that was the only reason she’d thrown herself at him pissed her off, even though sex was a logical ploy in this situation and if he were anyone else, she might have tried just that. “That’s not what I wanted—I mean, that’s not why I kissed you.”

“Didn’t you think fucking me would get you what you wanted?” The question was sharp and curt, but he didn’t sound angry, only tired.

“No,” Jyn said, startled into honesty. “I don’t think you’re the kind of person to be persuaded by that.”

He looked at her over his shoulder with a skeptical twist to his mouth, and she bit her lip. Given that she’d tried distracting him by coming on to him immediately after the first time she’d set eyes on him, she supposed he was entitled to doubt. 

“Besides,” she said, slightly nettled, “if I wanted to get somewhere in the Alliance by fucking someone, I’d be in Mon Mothma’s room.”

A web of tiny creases formed around his eyes and his mouth twitched in a nearly soundless laugh. “If you want to try seducing her instead, be my guest.” 

She grinned back at him. “Oh, seducing you, is that what I’m doing? I thought this was a blatant proposition.” 

Later—much later—Jyn would realize that was the moment she should’ve known she was in real trouble, because she didn’t just want to screw him. She wanted to hear him laugh again. She wanted to be the reason he laughed. 

He sighed. “We said just once,” he reminded her.

“No, _you_ said just once, and I agreed. Now I’ve changed my mind.” She drew closer to him again, feeling the gravitational pull of his body. The air between them was thick with heat. She wanted to lean in and draw her tongue over his skin, taste the sweat she could see gleaming in the hollow of his throat.

“Why?” he asked.

Jyn didn't know what to say. She was desperate just to be wanted for a few minutes, to hear someone say her name, and also she wanted to take pleasure from him, to seize it with both hands because it was all she could have. But she couldn’t admit to loneliness, so she resorted to the truth—or at least part of it. “Because it’s safer this way.” 

“Safer?” he repeated. 

“You have to keep an eye on me anyway.” She moved one step closer, tipping her head back to maintain eye contact. If he was still asking questions, she was halfway to convincing him; at least he hadn’t kicked her out of his room yet. “If I’m getting close and personal with you, then you know exactly where I am and what I’m up to. And you certainly won't let me get away with anything I shouldn't, will you, Captain Andor?” She rested her palm on his chest lightly, just above where his heart was thudding quickly, and stared at him, willing him to give in. 

He took her face in his surprisingly soft hands and held her gaze. “What do you see when you look at me like that?” he murmured.

Like what? Jyn didn’t understand. He was the one who stared at her like he could see through her hard-won camouflage, down into her cells, into her soul. He knew every detail of her life, down to the make and model of her first nanny droid, no doubt, and she knew nothing about him. Jyn had learned that her safety depended on her ability to stay invisible, unnoticed. Someone else able to see her like this was terrifying; but the risk was also thrilling.

She couldn’t tell him any of that, though. She just shrugged. “Are you going to kiss me, or what?”

Another small smile hovered at the corner of his mouth. Jyn already recognized that little curl; it meant he was willing to play along with her, for now. So she let him take the lead, curious to see what he’d do. He stroked along her bottom lip with his thumb, tugged it open just a little, and then leaned down and placed his mouth over hers: his warm, soft, sweet mouth. 

Jyn couldn't remember the last time anyone had been so gentle with her. It was a little disturbing. Tenderness wasn’t what she’d expected. But she didn’t let herself read too much into it; he was just giving her what he thought she wanted. 

She wound her arms around his neck again, pulling herself up so that she could press her whole body against his. He moved forward, pushing into her, guiding her backward step by step, just as she’d done to him earlier. It felt almost as though they were dancing again, like the night they met. Then the back of her knees hit the side of his cot, and she stopped. 

His hands were at her waist, undoing her pants, and she copied him, though it was hard to manage the buckles of his holster when his mouth was hot on her neck, tasting her sweat, trailing down into the opening of her shirt. Her breathing was fast, shallow and her skin felt hotter everywhere as he uncovered more of it. His hands roved over her hips, her ass, her back. Her pants sagged down to her feet and she kicked them off her ankles. He leaned forward into the kiss, tipping her off-balance, and she landed heavily on her back as the cot frame gave a sharp squeal. 

Jyn closed her eyes and prepared for the hard weight of his body to come down on her, press into her. But all that happened were his thumbs tracing small arcs on her inner thighs, his hands drifting upward so slowly that she was trembling with anticipation. Damn him, if he didn’t hurry up and fuck her she was going to lose her nerve—or her mind. 

She opened her eyes to find him standing between her legs, watching her: not cold or detached, but absorbed and intent. A shiver raced through her, both uneasy and excited at being seen like that. 

“This is still a bad idea,” he said, almost to himself, but his hands didn’t stop trailing slow heat over her skin. 

Jyn propped herself up on her elbows and glared at him. Was there no end to his scruples? She was sprawled naked across his bed, did she have to send him a formal invitation as well? “I thought I’d joined the Rebellion,” she needled him. “But apparently no-one here is actually interested in rebelling—” 

Her complaint ended with a sharp, high gasp as his palms slid higher and his thumbs finally pressed where she was already wet and aching. Her hips jerked up, seeking more, firmer contact, but he’d already moved his hands back to her lower thighs. He went to his knees between her legs, his eyes never leaving hers, and tilted his head in a silent question. 

Oh, Force. This was supposed to be another quick fuck, she shouldn’t take the risk… but the thought of his mouth had been in the back of her mind ever since he asked her on the shuttle. So she bit her lip and nodded once, quickly. The pit of her stomach bubbled in anticipation when he licked his lips, a flutter that sank lower and lower until it was a pulsing heat inside her.

He gently pushed her legs apart, settling between them as though he planned to stay there for a while. Jyn closed her eyes again as he kissed the inside of her left knee. The heat of his mouth moved slowly, deliberately, up her thigh and then paused. She held her breath, but he only moved across to her right thigh and followed the same path there. His hands stroked her legs, her thighs, her belly until her hips were circling restlessly and she couldn't keep back a tiny, pleading noise. 

His breath sighed over her and she felt him mutter something against her skin in a language she didn't recognize. Ice crawled through her veins. That wasn't accidental; a spy wouldn’t forget what language he was speaking in bed with someone. What was he saying that he didn’t want her to understand? Was he mocking her, calling her an Imperial whore while he made her moan? 

She twisted her fingers into his hair and yanked, dragging his head back. In the dim light, his eyes looked nearly all black. He licked his lips and she almost forgot what she wanted to know. 

“What was that?” she demanded. 

“I said I haven’t been able to stop thinking about how you’d taste.” He switched back to Basic, his native accent colouring the words. 

She was almost positive he was lying. And still, she trusted him—maybe because both of them lied as easily as breathing. Jyn wasn’t sure whether trust was even the right word: that was like saying she trusted the back of her hand to be across from her palm. She just knew that this man was the other side of her coin, the reflection in her mirror.

He ducked his head and drew his tongue up to the crease of her thigh, his breath hot against her skin. “Do you still want this?” 

Jyn decided that at this point, she didn’t care what he said to her, as long as he kept using his mouth in other ways. “Yes, dammit,” she gasped. She tipped her hips up, trying to guide him where she desperately wanted him, and he obeyed. 

At the first stroke of his tongue, a delicate tracery, she had to squeeze her eyes tight shut to keep from being utterly overwhelmed. Then he settled his whole mouth over her, slow and gradual, covering her with subtle pulsing pressure until she forgot how to breathe. 

Other people had done this to Jyn, but none of them had seemed like they wanted it this much, like they were enjoying it as much as she did. Cassian mouthed urgent noises against her skin and she could hear the cot squeak, feel it jolt as he ground his hips against the edge. The scrape of his stubble on her thigh alone was going to ruin her; she didn’t think she’d ever be able to look at him again without remembering what his mouth felt like. She heard herself moaning and tried to stop, but she couldn’t. 

Then his fingers joined his tongue in working over her, delving, stroking, spreading her open and pushing inside, and she was lost. An orgasm cracked up her spine like a whip, bending her backward. Jyn’s fingers cramped, biting into the bedding, and she barely got one hand up to her mouth in time to press it hard enough against her lips to hold in a scream.

As she floated down from the high of sensation, Cassian moved slowly up her body, trailing light kisses along the line of her ribs and the curve of her breasts. No-one had done that before, either; it was too much, too intimate. To distract him, she tugged on his hair again and pulled him up beside her.

There wasn’t much room on the narrow cot. Jyn rolled to the side and threw one leg over his, pinning him lightly. With a hand splayed flat over his chest, she explored the lean planes of his body, feeling the crisp texture of the hair. There was nothing extraneous to him, no padding or muscle that wasn’t absolutely utilitarian. His skin was surprisingly unmarked except for one short scar along his ribs that was too ragged for a knife cut: shrapnel, maybe? 

She pushed up, straddling his thighs, and he let her though he could easily have held her away. She circled his nipples with her thumbs to see whether he liked that (the shiver that ran through him said that he did), and slowly drew her hands down and down to where his cock strained against his belly, thick and hard. She traced a light fingertip along his shaft and watched it twitch. Leaning back to give herself more room to work, she took him in her fist and pulled, slow and strong, root to tip. His breathing was rougher, faster now, and she glanced at his face to find him staring at her with an expression she still couldn’t read.

“You don’t have to.” 

Did he honestly expect her to get up and leave? If it weren’t for the evidence of his arousal hard in her grip, Jyn would’ve been mildly insulted. Maybe he was making a point about not fucking Imperials. ”Why are you in such a hurry to get rid of me? Do you have somewhere else to be?” she asked, only half-joking. “And don’t say I got what I came for.”

“Didn’t you?” he said hoarsely.

“Not yet,” she said. She curled her other hand around him too, and enjoyed the way his eyes widened when she worked both up and down. 

Yeah, Jyn should have been selfish (sensible), taken what he’d offered, and walked away. Force knows, it would have been smarter. Still, the urge to make him react was prodding at her, the way she’d wanted to make him laugh earlier. She couldn’t resist the impulse to push farther, to uncover more—to find out whether the person she thought she’d glimpsed beneath Willix actually existed, or if the mask was his real face. She wanted to see if she could make him shed a layer of his armor. She wanted to know if he could be flustered. Was he ever reckless enough to abandon caution?

He breathed out a long, quiet curse, his fingers digging into her thighs. “I'm not used to— _ahh_ —being watched.”

That was a shame. He was fucking gorgeous. Who wouldn't want to see him like this, loose and pliant, flushed with pleasure?

“Well, I like the view,” Jyn told him. The tiny, desperate whine he made was beautiful, and she ground back against his thighs a little harder, shuddering through a new tremor of arousal. As she rolled her hips against his, the movement pushed him through her loose fist. She tightened her grip and felt him swell impossibly harder, thicker. He closed his eyes and threw his head back as she dragged her hand slowly along his length, and her mouth dried with want. 

She bent down to trail her lips along the leaping pulse in his neck, over the border of his beard, through the strands of his hair. “I want you inside me,” she whispered in his ear.

That got a reaction, an indrawn breath that seemed as loud as a shout and a tense stillness in the muscles beneath her. “It’s not—” 

She laid her finger over his lips. “You know it’s safe. You were in the room for my medical exam.”

“That’s not what I meant,” he mumbled, but didn’t offer any other reason. 

"Can I...?" she asked, hoping she didn't sound too desperate.

“Yes,” he rasped, and she took a deep breath and tilted her hips until he slid inside her. The deep stretch and repletion forced a moan out of her throat. She was so wet he almost slipped out of her as she began to move, so wet her body made slick noises as she rocked along him. 

Cassian ran his hands up to her shoulders and pulled her down close against his body, holding her still. Breathless, he said, “Wait, please, I just need a minute.”

Of course he said it to seem vulnerable, likeable. But as with everything he did, even when Jyn knew the motive, she wanted to believe he was sincere—especially when his hand swept her hair back from her face and he kissed her again, deep and steady. 

He set a pace slower than she’d expected, holding her tight and working her along his hard length as she groaned. Her thighs ached with tension as she pushed herself slowly up and down. Jyn still wanted to make him come so hard he'd forget his name. She brought her mouth close to his ear and growled, “Cassian. Come.”

His hips jolted up as though he’d been shocked. Jyn rose up again and drew his hands to cup her breasts. She braced herself against his strength and rolled her hips faster and harder, slamming down on him. His hands slid down and banded tight across her ribs, his thumbs digging in till it almost hurt, gripping and holding her down hard against him. She watched Cassian's face as the inescapable clench and release dug deeper into him, as he squeezed his eyes shut, as he arched up and came with a hoarse, rough noise that sounded like almost as much pain as pleasure.

Jyn let herself fall forward, gasping. His chest laboured underneath her in a contrasting rhythm. She turned her cheek to lay against his breastbone while she fought her breath back into an even cadence. 

After a moment, she rolled her head up and rested her chin on Cassian’s chest, staring at his face as it shifted into strange new angles. He didn’t look any softer—she didn’t think there were many circumstances under which he wouldn’t remain just as sharp and alert—but there was a slight relaxation at the corners of his mouth, something that might have been the seed of a smile. She traced a fingertip around it and watched it grow into that tiny upward curl of amusement.

He didn’t open his eyes, or shift away from beneath her. One arm wrapped around her shoulders, and his fingers played with the short strands of her hair where they fell across her nape. The other hand stroked an idle, comforting circuit up and down her spine that made her wish she could put her head back down and fall asleep. Then his hand slowed, came to a stop on her hip, cupping it lightly, and she felt him let out a long breath as though in preparation to speak.

Jyn took her cue and rolled away, out of bed, standing and scooping up her pants on her way to the fresher. She didn’t bother asking permission to use it; he wouldn’t want her leaving his quarters looking like she’d just had the breath fucked out of her. She washed so quickly that the water barely had time to get lukewarm before dragging her pants back on, rinsed her mouth and splashed water on her face until she looked a little less debauched.

When she emerged, Andor was fully dressed himself and sitting at his desk: a clear signal that they were back to whatever semi-professional kind of relationship they were supposed to have. She picked her shirt up off the floor where she’d dropped it and shrugged it back on. “When will I hear about the mission? Officially?”

He tossed her a sock that had somehow ended up on the other side of the room. “There’ll be a briefing later tonight. Draven will send you the details.” 

“Okay.” Jyn fastened her shirt slowly and tucked it into her pants, strangely uncertain. The whole experience had been unusual. Disconcerting, in a lot of ways she didn’t want to think about too closely right now. Part of her wished she could stay, but that was ridiculous—better to keep things straightforward. “This won’t… change anything, right?”

He shook his head.

She stuffed her feet into her boots, fighting an urge to walk over and stand beside his chair, pull his head back and kiss him, or plant herself on his lap and make him look at her again. The most important thing was to get her father off Eadu, away from Krennic. Maybe after that… but there was no point in wishful thinking.

“Then I'll see you at the briefing, Captain,” she said in a tone that just barely stayed on this side of insolence. She flipped him a deliberately sloppy salute and left before she could say anything else stupid.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Posting now in a last-minute effort to say that I managed to achieve something (even if it was only editing ~4000 words of smut) during the month of April.

Cassian is a mess: filthy, irritated, on edge. If he could crawl out of his own skin like a molting Trandoshan right this second, he would. 

He hasn’t even shed the Imperial uniform he’s wearing, which is normally the first thing he does as soon as he’s in a safe place or upon landing on base. But they took off hot, under pursuit, and he had to manage some quick hyperspace skips to dodge it. Kay needed some hasty rewiring on the flight back, too, and even after the official debrief, Draven kept him for a long dissection of just how badly things were fucked up. 

The jacket is wrinkled and creased, his hair’s hanging in his eyes and stubble prickles along his jaw. Exhaustion weights his steps; he can barely lift his feet in the heavy boots that are rubbing a raw spot on his heel. 

The door to his quarters wavers in front of his eyes like a mirage and he has to focus hard to recall his current passcode, tapping it in with intense concentration. Because of that, it takes him longer than it should to realize someone is inside his room. As his door unlocks with a creak on to the freezing square of darkness inside, someone springs up from his bed. 

Cassian isn’t seriously expecting an ambush in his own quarters on a Rebel base, but he’s still riding the adrenaline-buzzing edge of a mission that was a millimetre or two from a very bad end. His hand twitches toward the knife at his back the instant before he recognizes Jyn’s voice saying “Lights on.” 

“Off,” he counter-orders harshly, the words scratching his dry throat. Thank the Force, the overhead panels flicker off before they get up to full brightness. He can’t stand the thought of illumination now; darkness is better.

Jyn is in his quarters. And from what he can see, she’s wearing nothing but one of his shirts. He ought to be angry, he supposes, but it’s not like he keeps anything confidential in here. If she wants to break in, either for the challenge of slicing his lock or just for a better bed, she’s welcome to. 

He knows she comes here sometimes while he's away. At first he thought it was an attempt to gather intel, but she doesn't disturb anything and she leaves plenty of traces of her presence behind: her warmth in his sheets, a strand of her hair on his pillow. If she were looking for something, she'd make more effort to be undetected.

“You’re back early.” She doesn’t usually state the obvious, nor is she normally so flustered around him. She stands by the bed, twisting her hands in the hem of his shirt, and he wonders why she’s so nervous. “Do you want me to go?” 

Cassian shakes his head silently. He’s too tired to speak. After the last ten days in the Abrion sector chasing phantom leads about Death Star deployment, the last twelve hours trapped on an Imperial base, and the last forty minutes presenting what he discovered to Mothma and Draven, he has no reserves left. 

Sometimes his favourite thing about Jyn is that she doesn’t talk much either; she’s quiet and reserved unless she needs to make an impression. Occasionally he wonders how much of that is her natural temperament, and how much of it is due to growing up as what amounted to a spy. Mostly, he tries not to think about Jyn’s childhood. It’s too depressing wondering which of them is more screwed up thanks to their upbringing. 

She walks over to him slowly, eying his clothes. She brushes soot off his sleeve and tugs at his shoulder seams to align them into something more like proper dress code. “Back in uniform? Why?”

He shrugs. “Occupational hazard for a spy.”

She combs her fingers through his hair, pushing it away from his face and studying him in the faint illumination of the lighting strip at the base of the door. Her mouth tightens, almost imperceptibly, but this close he can see the tiny lines bracketing the corners of her lips. “I don’t like it.”

“So take it off.” Cassian blinks. He didn’t know he was going to say that until the words came out of his mouth. This happens more and more often around Jyn; he’s losing all of his filters around her, which isn’t good. But when her eyes flash up to his and she grins, a bright impish flicker, he decides to set that aside for now. 

She trails her fingers across his cheek, down over his chin and snaps the complicated latch of his collar loose in one quick movement, with the ease of long practice. Cassian is startled by a burning spike of anger at the fact she knows how to do it so swiftly. How many Imperial officers did Jyn have to undress—to fuck? 

He closes his eyes and forces his jaw to relax. Irrelevant, and stupid of him to think about, not to mention hypocritical. Cassian has always believed that sleeping with an asset is the act of a fool or a predator. Considering how clear Jyn’s made it that she wants this, he can’t quite feel like a predator—which makes him a fool. Especially since he hasn’t yet figured out what she wants from him. 

Cassian might know a great deal about Jyn Erso, but he understands much less. The biggest mystery is why she keeps coming back, other than the obvious. But she could get that from almost anyone else on base; he doesn’t flatter himself that he’s irreplaceable. 

The other obvious answer doesn’t seem to apply either. Cassian knows the signs of someone trying to beguile information, knows them from the inside out. Jyn is never subtle or oblique. Her words are blunt as a fist, and often in a tone that implies he’s an idiot.

Her hands slow as they move down his chest, undoing the fastenings hidden behind the placket there to reveal bare skin: definitely not regulation, but there hadn’t been time to wrestle the undershirt off the previous owner. She taps the square rank badge on his chest. “Did Willix get a promotion?”

Of course she’d know at a glance that the uniform he’s wearing belongs to a Commander, not a Lieutenant. It isn’t Willix’s, though—Cassian took this one off an officer he killed to get out of an interrogation cell. And wearing a dead man’s clothes is only part of the reason he’s raw and unstable. It’s the closest he’s come to being captured (no, not just captured, neutralized) in years. 

His thoughts are jerky and uncontrollable today, jumping all over the place. He can’t rein them in and focus on essentials. “Willix is gone,” Cassian says, in an effort to distract himself. “Had to retire after he got you out.”

“Oh.” Jyn’s eyes flick up to meet his again; in the dimness, their usual golden-green hazel is darkened to the shade of a forest at night. 

Kark it, he’s really out of it if he’s reduced to nature metaphors.

“What did you think of Willix? When we met?” he asks her. His tongue is still running away with him, but it’s a fairly harmless question; Jyn may or may not tell him the truth, but either way her answer should be interesting.

Her hands finally reach the bottom hem of his jacket and it falls open. “I thought you were going to be the one who finally got me caught. You knew I was up to something, and you weren’t willing to be distracted. And then…” She hesitates, drawing a delicate, ticklish line up from his navel to the centre of his chest. “Then you got me to trust you.”

Trust: the weird, unspoken link between them that had formed when they each realized they weren’t who they were pretending to be. Sex is no reason to let down his guard, Cassian understands that; but somehow, Jyn managed to get him to do just that before she ever touched him. If it’s a con, she’s one of the best he’s ever seen. And the fact he doesn’t want to believe it is just one of the signs he’s in far over his head.

Jyn slips the jacket off his shoulders and pushes it down his arms, tugging the narrow sleeves past his wrists. When it drops to the floor, Cassian feels as raw and exposed as though she’s peeling off his skin, not just his clothes.

She sketches a fingertip around the cloudy inkstain of a bruise rising on the side of his rib cage. “You’re hurt.” 

“It’s just a bruise.” He can’t understand why she sounds angry about it; none of his ribs are cracked, though breathing hurts a little.

She bends her head slowly, but the soft press of her lips is still a shock. Her short hair falls away from her neck to expose the tender skin of her nape, and with a sudden desperate hunger he wants to kiss her there. 

She straightens up too quickly, before he can force his exhausted body into motion. Her hands glide over his body in opposite directions, one sliding warm down his spine to rest at the waistband of his pants and one cupping the back of his neck. When she squeezes the tight band of muscle there, an inadvertent groan rises from his chest, though he swallows most all of it. 

“Sore?” She pushes her other hand up his back, rolling the heel of her palm firm against his spine, and then she digs all ten fingers into the cramped set of his shoulders at once.

The noise he makes this time is louder, and it sounds obscene in the quiet room. Casssian doesn’t have the strength for sex right now, but apparently his cock doesn’t know that: it wakes and stirs, straining against the tight uniform pants.

“Mmm, that looks uncomfortable,” Jyn murmurs, dropping one hand to glide gently over the fly of his pants. Slowly she undoes his belt, lets the pants slide down his legs, and curls her hands around the back of his thighs with a light scrape of her nails that makes him gasp. 

He has to get out of his boots soon, or this is going to be ridiculous—but if he bends over to pull them off, he’s not sure he’ll be able to stand up straight again. And though he wants Jyn so badly he can taste it, like the burn of liquor in his throat, she won’t be interested in watching him collapse into bed like a felled tree. 

He sags forward, putting his arms around her and leaning on her a little more heavily than he should. “I’m no good to you right now,” he mumbles into her hair. Better to admit it before it's too embarrassing. 

Her warm hands run up to his hips, over his ribs, around to cup his shoulder blades and she presses a soft kiss to the centre of his chest. “Don’t worry about it.” She pushes him backward, gently, moving along with him. “Come on.” 

He hits the edge of the mattress and thumps down to sit on it as she sinks to her knees before him. Her strong hands clamp around the heel of one boot, then the other, and pry them off. She pokes lightly at his shoulder and he lies down, wondering what she’s planning. But all she does is tug his pants off, along with the sheathed knife, leaving everything crumpled on the floor, and then crawl into bed beside him. 

She curls into his side and with the last of his energy, Cassian rolls to face her. Her nose brushes his and her breath fans over his lips. He closes his eyes and lets his hand fall on her hip, rubbing the soft skin beneath her shirt— _his_ shirt—where it’s ridden up. Jyn’s hand is caught between the two of them, and she traces a fingertip in spirals over his chest. 

Darkness, quiet—these aren’t always good things for Cassian right after a mission. He can get trapped in his own head. But having someone else here, warm and breathing and close beside him, is helping. Jyn lifts her chin a fraction and kisses him on the mouth: a brief contact, before her lips travel softly across his cheek and down his jaw. Cassian gathers her closer in his arms and fills his hands with Jyn: her hips, her back and shoulders, the short strands of her hair. Her hands stroking his body and the soft rhythm of her breath lifting her breasts into his chest lull him into a sleepy state of arousal. He kisses the delicate angle where her shoulder meets her neck, inhaling the scent of her like oxygen. 

This isn’t how things usually are between them. Cassian is careful to make sure that Jyn wants it, every time, but usually she wants it fast and hard, on the biting edge of rough. She's taking pity on his exhaustion, and he's grateful. 

Jyn slides down toward the end of the bed, and presses his hipbone back so that he’s lying flat. She curls her hand around his half-hard cock and strokes him again. He can feel her hovering just above him, her breath hot, until she lowers her head and presses a kiss to the tip of it. Her mouth takes him in, gently, deeply, and a soft groan escapes him. He’s harder than he would have thought possible, given how drained he is. But right now, more than anything, he wants to kiss her. 

He tugs her back up on top of him and presses his lips to her forehead, to the strands of hair falling over her eyes, to the corner of her mouth. With a sigh she tips her head closer and their mouths fuse together. They trade dreamy kisses between each breath as her hands run slowly up into his hair, down over his shoulders, along his back, cupping his ass and holding his body against hers, her leg pressing up against his erection. 

He turns into her neck again only to rest there, where his breath rides over her collar bone, the hollow of her throat. She grips his hair in her fist and holds him tight to her breast. Her touch is like a drug rush, an intoxicating shiver rolling through his veins. Their legs interlocked, they fall into a steady rhythm, rocking together in a hazy cloud of pleasure. Cassian’s own desire is half-satisfied by feeling Jyn all around him: her body, her heartbeat, her wetness against his thigh.

Cassian touches her slowly, not just because he’s so tired he can barely keep his hands moving, but because he’s discovering that he loves taking his time with Jyn, teasing her into a slow-building fire. He watches her face, watches her eyelids flicker over her closed eyes and her throat move as she swallows. She’s so warm and alive in his arms; all he wants is to stroke her skin from throat to hip, press his thumb into the little divot of her navel, feel the lift and drop of her rib cage, the small weight of her breasts, the strong muscled line of her thighs. 

She cants her hips up toward his hand with a small whimper. His fingers slide between her legs and he touches her slow, slow, slow, with rapt attention to all her small moans, quiet gasps, the tiny hitch in her breath that tells him she’s nearly there… 

Her fingers clench hard on Cassian’s shoulders, to the point of pain, her body tenses for a second and he feels her throb around his fingers, against his thigh. He comes a moment later, every muscle coiling and tightening until he snaps and then falls, dissolving into mindlessness.

Cassian loses a few endless seconds, drifting into blurry sleep again until Jyn sits up and snags her underwear from the floor. Something about the curve of her spine makes his breath ache in his chest, and before she can stand he loops a hand around her elbow. “You can stay,” he whispers, and then instantly backpedals, fearful that he’s pushed too far. “If you want.”

She doesn’t say anything for a long moment. Cassian lets his hand fall away from her skin, resigned to seeing her leave, and then she lies down beside him again. She curls up facing him, without a word. He stays carefully still, closing his eyes, and shivers when she runs her fingers through his hair. “Was it bad?” she asks quietly. 

Cassian would be startled, except he’s gotten used to the realization that Jyn can see more of him than is comfortable. He doesn’t know how to describe how the mission turned out. In the end he got what they needed to know, but the cost… “It wasn’t optimal.”

“You sound like Kay.” She snorts. 

He debates the wisdom of telling her more, but she’s probably already figured most of it out. “It’ll be very hard to infiltrate the Death Star now. After the destruction of the facility on Eadu, even if they haven’t figured out that your father wasn’t there—everything related to the station is locked down, highest security. And time’s running out. They’ll put it into operation as soon as they can. If Galen’s timetable is accurate, we have about a three week window left.”

“I don’t regret saving his life.” Her voice is hard. “He couldn’t have gone on much longer.”

“I know,” he answers. “And his help has been essential. Just having the evidence that it exists, let alone knowing how to stop it, is invaluable.”

She hears the unspoken ‘but’ at the end of his words. “Do you think it will do any good?” she asks quietly.

“Maybe.” Cassian tries to sound reassuring; it could happen. “The more exposure, the better. It might force some people to open their eyes. But no, it won’t stop the Empire. First they’ll say it doesn’t exist, and then, if Mothma presents all the evidence to the Senate, they’ll blame it on a renegade faction.” As if a project of that magnitude could be hidden from the Emperor.

“But what will happen? What will they do with it then?”

“It doesn’t matter, because we’ll destroy it,” Cassian says. “A weapon like that can’t be left intact. Even if the Emperor falls, do you think there are no Senators who’d be prepared to use it?” His childhood on a Separatist world taught him that much.

Despite the unsettling conversation, his eyelids are heavy. They keep drifting shut and making his vision go dark before he blinks and forces them open again. He folds himself around Jyn, not daring to touch his lips to her shoulder but resting a hand lightly on her hip. Surprisingly, she laces her fingers through his and pulls his arm around her. The warmth of her along his side is a more tangible comfort than the familiar walls of his room, than the lock on the door.

“It hurts.” 

The small whisper against Cassian’s collarbone makes his heart clench. Without conscious effort, his arms wrap tighter around Jyn. “What do you mean?” he asks, forcing his voice to stay level and soft in the darkness.

“Hoping.” She pauses and he hears her suck in a deep, ragged breath. “For years and years I didn’t really hope that things could be better. I kept going because it was either that or lay down and die. And now we might actually have a chance to do something, to make a difference, and I want it so much it’s terrifying.” She swallows. “Do you know what I mean?”

Cassian nods against her cheek. He knows that sensation of painful hope. “I do,” he whispers. “I always knew that what I was doing—me, personally—wouldn't make the difference, but that with everyone else fighting together, sooner or later we’d win. And it didn’t matter whether I was there or not, as long as it happened in the end.” He turns his head, inhaling the scent of her hair, and presses his lips to the flyaway strands over her cheekbone. “Now, I want to be there. I want to survive long enough to see the end of this war.”

“And that’s a bad thing?” she asks, her voice thin with confusion. 

It is for him, because of the unspoken corollary to that desire, the part he hasn’t dared admit even to himself yet. “It can hurt. Like you said. Because now I want something that might not happen.”

Cassian has no idea what would become of him if he lived to see that time; he doesn’t think he’s made for peace. But Jyn isn’t a soldier, even though she’s a fighter. She could bloom in peacetime, and he wants that for her, wants it desperately. 

She’s silent for a long moment, her back rising and falling under his hands in a quiet rhythm that makes him wonder if she’s fallen asleep. “I hope you get what you want.” 

“I hope we both do.”


End file.
